Neil Armstrong extended an invite to his place to catch last night’s Knicks-Kings game, seeing as we both share our love for the blue and orange and there’s now an aura of optimism for our team, evident in people congregating just to see them play. Obviously, the emergence of Jeremy Lin has invigorated our fanaticism and New York did it again by beating Sacramento by 15 with Lin notching up 13 assists.

Watching sports with fellow fans inadvertently enhances your game watching experience by swapping stats, facts and sometimes some anecdotes you wouldn’t expect. While I was watching the game and grabbing my son before he broke any of the DJ equipment, Neil mentioned that he met Jeremy in 2010. Long before the media hype and positive turn for our local team, Neil was working an Adidas NBA rookie event and met the kid when the player was still a virtual unknown. Neil didn’t really think of it much as Lin signed his 2010 All-Star Game sneakers. I don’t blame him. I didn’t hear about Lin until the Knicks picked him after he was waived by Houston. I didn’t expect much from the kid as a Knicks fan but I would get hyped up earlier in the season during garbage time as he would get some late game experience minutes.

Now, those kicks mean something else. I immediately told Neil that I needed to take a snapshot of these kicks for posterity. If Jeremy Lin grows to live up to the hype and becomes one of the greatest Cinderella stories in sports, that pre-Linsanity autograph ends up making some change for my friend.

But I doubt Neil needs the money immediately since he’s almost sold out on the box set of his special 10 year anniversary edition of his claim-to-fame mixtape series, Original. Their stories are similar where Lin was given a shot to play and impressed, just like Neil taking a chance putting out a tape to the world and it falling into the hands of Jay-Z. You may not be able to buy Lin’s sneakers yet, but you can grab the Original boxset over at Neil’s house of hits.